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Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald

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Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam...... 4 Introduction...... 4 First Edition ...... 14 KUZA—NAMA. (“Book of Pots”)...... 24 Fifth Edition ...... 27 Notes ...... 44 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ing, as quoted in the Calcutta Review, No. 59, from Mirkhond’s History of the Assassins. Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald “‘One of the greatest of the wise men of Khorassan was the Imam Mowaffak of Naishapur, a man highly honored and Introduction reverenced,—may God rejoice his soul; his illustrious years exceeded eighty-five, and it was the universal belief that every Omar Khayyam, boy who read the Koran or studied the traditions in his pres- The Astronomer-Poet of Persia. ence, would assuredly attain to honor and happiness. For this cause did my father send me from Tus to Naishapur with OMAR KHAYYAM WAS BORN at Naishapur in Khorassan in the Abd-us-samad, the doctor of law, that I might employ my- latter half of our Eleventh, and died within the First Quarter self in study and learning under the guidance of that illustri- of our Twelfth Century. The Slender Story of his Life is curi- ous teacher. Towards me he ever turned an eye of favor and ously twined about that of two other very considerable Fig- kindness, and as his pupil I felt for him extreme affection and ures in their Time and Country: one of whom tells the Story devotion, so that I passed four years in his service. When I of all Three. This was Nizam ul Mulk, Vizier to Alp Arslan first came there, I found two other pupils of mine own age the Son, and Malik Shah the Grandson, of Toghrul Beg the newly arrived, Hakim Omar Khayyam, and the ill-fated Ben Tartar, who had wrested Persia from the feeble Successor of Sabbah. Both were endowed with sharpness of wit and the Mahmud the Great, and founded that Seljukian Dynasty highest natural powers; and we three formed a close friend- which finally roused Europe into the Crusades. This Nizam ship together. When the Imam rose from his lectures, they ul Mulk, in his Wasiyat—or Testament—which he wrote and used to join me, and we repeated to each other the lessons we left as a Memorial for future Statesmen—relates the follow- had heard. Now Omar was a native of Naishapur, while Hasan

4 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Ben Sabbah’s father was one Ali, a man of austere life and prac- failing in a base attempt to supplant his benefactor, he was tise, but heretical in his creed and doctrine. One day Hasan disgraced and fell. After many mishaps and wanderings, Hasan said to me and to Khayyam, “It is a universal belief that the became the head of the Persian sect of the Ismailians,—a party pupils of the Imam Mowaffak will attain to fortune. Now, of fanatics who had long murmured in obscurity, but rose to even if we all do not attain thereto, without doubt one of us an evil eminence under the guidance of his strong and evil will; what then shall be our mutual pledge and bond?” We will. In A.D. 1090, he seized the castle of Alamut, in the answered, “Be it what you please.” “Well,” he said, “let us make province of Rudbar, which lies in the mountainous tract south a vow, that to whomsoever this fortune falls, he shall share it of the Caspian Sea; and it was from this mountain home he equally with the rest, and reserve no pre-eminence for himself.” obtained that evil celebrity among the Crusaders as the Old “Be it so,” we both replied, and on those terms we mutually Man of the Mountains, and spread terror through the Mo- pledged our words. Years rolled on, and I went from Khorassan hammedan world; and it is yet disputed where the word As- to Transoxiana, and wandered to Ghazni and Cabul; and when sassin, which they have left in the language of modern Eu- I returned, I was invested with office, and rose to be adminis- rope as their dark memorial, is derived from the hashish, or trator of affairs during the Sultanate of Sultan Alp Arslan.’ opiate of hemp-leaves (the Indian bhang), with which they “He goes on to state, that years passed by, and both his old maddened themselves to the sullen pitch of oriental despera- school-friends found him out, and came and claimed a share tion, or from the name of the founder of the dynasty, whom in his good fortune, according to the school-day vow. The we have seen in his quiet collegiate days, at Naishapur. One Vizier was generous and kept his word. Hasan demanded a of the countless victims of the Assassin’s dagger was Nizam ul place in the government, which the Sultan granted at the Mulk himself, the old school-boy friend.* Vizier’s request; but discontented with a gradual rise, he *Some of Omar’s Rubaiyat warn us of the danger of Great- plunged into the maze of intrigue of an oriental court, and, ness, the instability of Fortune, and while advocating Char

5 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam “Omar Khayyam also came to the Vizier to claim his share; Omar was one of the eight learned men employed to do it; but not to ask for title or office. ‘The greatest boon you can the result was the Jalali era (so called from Jalal-ud-din, one confer on me,’ he said, ‘is to let me live in a corner under the of the king’s names)—’a computation of time,’ says Gibbon, shadow of your fortune, to spread wide the advantages of ‘which surpasses the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of Science, and pray for your long life and prosperity.’ The Vi- the Gregorian style.’ He is also the author of some astro- zier tells us, that when he found Omar was really sincere in nomical tables, entitled ‘Ziji-Malikshahi,’ and the French have his refusal, he pressed him no further, but granted him a yearly lately republished and translated an Arabic Treatise of his on pension of 1200 mithkals of gold from the treasury of Algebra. Naishapur. “His Takhallus or poetical name (Khayyam) signifies a Tent- “At Naishapur thus lived and died Omar Khayyam, ‘bus- maker, and he is said to have at one time exercised that trade, ied,’ adds the Vizier, ‘in winning knowledge of every kind, perhaps before Nizam-ul-Mulk’s generosity raised him to in- and especially in Astronomy, wherein he attained to a very dependence. Many Persian poets similarly derive their names high pre-eminence. Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, he from their occupations; thus we have Attar, ‘a druggist,’ Assar, came to Merv, and obtained great praise for his proficiency in ‘an oil presser,’ etc.* Omar himself alludes to his name in the science, and the Sultan showered favors upon him.’ following whimsical lines:— “When the Malik Shah determined to reform the calendar, “‘Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science, Has fallen in grief’s furnace and been suddenly burned; ity to all Men, recommending us to be too intimate with The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life, none. Attar makes Nizam-ul-Mulk use the very words of his And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!’ friend Omar [Rub. xxviii.], “When Nizam-ul-Mulk was in the Agony (of Death) he said, ‘Oh God! I am passing away *Though all these, like our Smiths, Archers, Millers, Fletchers, in the hand of the wind.’” etc., may simply retain the Surname of an hereditary calling. 6 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam “We have only one more anecdote to give of his Life, and outside a garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched their that relates to the close; it is told in the anonymous preface boughs over the garden wall, and dropped their flowers upon which is sometimes prefixed to his poems; it has been printed his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them.”’” in the Persian in the Appendix to Hyde’s Veterum Persarum Religio, p. 499; and D’Herbelot alludes to it in his **The Rashness of the Words, according to D’Herbelot, con- Bibliotheque, under Khiam.*— sisted in being so opposed to those in the Koran: “No Man “‘It is written in the chronicles of the ancients that this King knows where he shall die.”—This story of Omar reminds me of the Wise, Omar Khayyam, died at Naishapur in the year of another so naturally—and when one remembers how wide of the Hegira, 517 (A.D. 1123); in science he was unrivaled,— of his humble mark the noble sailor aimed—so pathetically the very paragon of his age. Khwajah Nizami of Samarcand, told by Captain Cook—not by Doctor Hawkworth—in his who was one of his pupils, relates the following story: “I of- Second Voyage (i. 374). When leaving Ulietea, “Oreo’s last ten used to hold conversations with my teacher, Omar request was for me to return. When he saw he could not obtain Khayyam, in a garden; and one day he said to me, ‘My tomb that promise, he asked the name of my Marai (burying-place). shall be in a spot where the north wind may scatter roses over As strange a question as this was, I hesitated not a moment to tell it.’ I wondered at the words he spake, but I knew that his him ‘Stepney’; the parish in which I live when in London. I was were no idle words.** Years after, when I chanced to revisit made to repeat it several times over till they could pronounce it; Naishapur, I went to his final resting-place, and lo! it was just and then ‘Stepney Marai no Toote’ was echoed through an hun- dred mouths at once. I afterwards found the same question had *”Philosophe Musulman qui a vecu en Odeur de Saintete been put to Mr. Forster by a man on shore; but he gave a differ- dans sa Religion, vers la Fin du premier et le Commence- ent, and indeed more proper answer, by saying, ‘No man who ment du second Siecle,” no part of which, except the used the sea could say where he should be buried.’” “Philosophe,” can apply to our Khayyam. 7 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Thus far—without fear of Trespass—from the Calcutta Re- Heaven and Earth, and this World and the Next, on the wings view. The writer of it, on reading in India this story of Omar’s of a poetical expression, that might serve indifferently for ei- Grave, was reminded, he says, of Cicero’s Account of finding ther. Omar was too honest of Heart as well of Head for this. Archimedes’ Tomb at Syracuse, buried in grass and weeds. I Having failed (however mistakenly) of finding any Providence think Thorwaldsen desired to have roses grow over him; a but Destiny, and any World but This, he set about making wish religiously fulfilled for him to the present day, I believe. the most of it; preferring rather to soothe the Soul through However, to return to Omar. the Senses into Acquiescence with Things as he saw them, Though the Sultan “shower’d Favors upon him,” Omar’s than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might Epicurean Audacity of Thought and Speech caused him to be be. It has been seen, however, that his Worldly Ambition was regarded askance in his own Time and Country. He is said to not exorbitant; and he very likely takes a humorous or per- have been especially hated and dreaded by the Sufis, whose verse pleasure in exalting the gratification of Sense above that Practise he ridiculed, and whose Faith amounts to little more of the Intellect, in which he must have taken great delight, than his own, when stript of the Mysticism and formal rec- although it failed to answer the Questions in which he, in ognition of Islamism under which Omar would not hide. common with all men, was most vitally interested. Their Poets, including Hafiz, who are (with the exception of For whatever Reason, however, Omar as before said, has Firdausi) the most considerable in Persia, borrowed largely, never been popular in his own Country, and therefore has indeed, of Omar’s material, but turning it to a mystical Use been but scantily transmitted abroad. The MSS. of his Po- more convenient to Themselves and the People they addressed; ems, mutilated beyond the average Casualties of Oriental Tran- a People quite as quick of Doubt as of Belief; as keen of Bodily scription, are so rare in the East as scarce to have reacht West- sense as of Intellectual; and delighting in a cloudy composi- ward at all, in spite of all the acquisitions of Arms and Sci- tion of both, in which they could float luxuriously between ence. There is no copy at the India House, none at the

8 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris. We know but of one in En- “O Thou who burn’st in Heart for those who burn gland: No. 140 of the Ouseley MSS. at the Bodleian, written In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn, at , A.D. 1460. This contains but 158 Rubaiyat. One How long be crying, ‘Mercy on them, God!’ in the Asiatic Society’s Library at Calcutta (of which we have Why, who art Thou to teach, and He to learn?” a Copy), contains (and yet incomplete) 516, though swelled The Bodleian pleads Pantheism by way of Justifi- to that by all kinds of Repetition and Corruption. So Von cation. Hammer speaks of his Copy as containing about 200, while Dr. Sprenger catalogues the Lucknow MS. at double that “If I myself upon a looser Creed number.* The Scribes, too, of the Oxford and Calcutta MSS. Have loosely strung the Jewel of Good deed, seem to do their Work under a sort of Protest; each beginning Let this one thing for my Atonement plead: with a Tetrastich (whether genuine or not), taken out of its That One for Two I never did misread.” alphabetical order; the Oxford with one of Apology; the Calcutta with one of Expostulation, supposed (says a Notice The Reviewer,* to whom I owe the Particulars of Omar’s prefixed to the MS.) to have arisen from a Dream, in which Life, concludes his Review by comparing him with Lucretius, Omar’s mother asked about his future fate. It may be ren- both as to natural Temper and Genius, and as acted upon by dered thus:— the Circumstances in which he lived. Both indeed were men of subtle, strong, and cultivated Intellect, fine Imagination, and Hearts passionate for Truth and Justice; who justly re- *”Since this paper was written” (adds the Reviewer in a note), volted from their Country’s false Religion, and false, or fool- “we have met with a Copy of a very rare Edition, printed at ish, Devotion to it; but who fell short of replacing what they Calcutta in 1836. This contains 438 Tetrastichs, with an Appendix containing 54 others not found in some MSS.” *Professor Cowell. 9 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam subverted by such better Hope as others, with no better Rev- Rubaiyat (as, missing an Arabic Guttural, these Tetrastichs are elation to guide them, had yet made a Law to themselves. more musically called) are independent Stanzas, consisting each Lucretius indeed, with such material as Epicurus furnished, of four Lines of equal, though varied, Prosody; sometimes all satisfied himself with the theory of a vast machine fortuitously rhyming, but oftener (as here imitated) the third line a blank. constructed, and acting by a Law that implied no Legislator; Somewhat as in the Greek Alcaic, where the penultimate line and so composing himself into a Stoical rather than Epicu- seems to lift and suspend the Wave that falls over in the last. rean severity of Attitude, sat down to contemplate the me- As usual with such kind of Oriental Verse, the Rubaiyat fol- chanical drama of the Universe which he was part Actor in; low one another according to Alphabetic Rhyme—a strange himself and all about him (as in his own sublime description succession of Grave and Gay. Those here selected are strung of the Roman Theater) discolored with the lurid reflex of the into something of an Eclogue, with perhaps a less than equal Curtain suspended between the Spectator and the Sun. Omar, proportion of the “Drink and make-merry,” which (genuine more desperate, or more careless of any so complicated Sys- or not) recurs over-frequently in the Original. Either way, tem as resulted in nothing but hopeless Necessity, flung his the Result is sad enough: saddest perhaps when most ostenta- own Genius and Learning with a bitter or humorous jest into tiously merry: more apt to move Sorrow than Anger toward the general Ruin which their insufficient glimpses only served the old Tentmaker, who, after vainly endeavoring to unshackle to reveal; and, pretending sensual pleasure, as the serious pur- his Steps from Destiny, and to catch some authentic Glimpse pose of Life, only diverted himself with speculative problems of to-morrow, fell back upon to-day (which has outlasted so of Deity, Destiny, Matter and Spirit, Good and Evil, and other many To-morrows!) as the only Ground he had got to stand such questions, easier to start than to run down, and the pur- upon, however momentarily slipping from under his Feet. suit of which becomes a very weary sport at last! With regard to the present . The original

10 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam [From the Third Edition.] That he could not, appears by his Paper in the Calcutta Re- view already so largely quoted; in which he argues from the WHILE THE SECOND Edition of this version of Omar was pre- Poems themselves, as well as from what records remain of the paring, Monsieur Nicolas, French Consul at Resht, published Poet’s Life. a very careful and very good Edition of the Text, from a litho- And if more were needed to disprove Mons. Nicolas’ Theory, graph copy at Teheran, comprising 464 Rubaiyat, with trans- there is the Biographical Notice which he himself has drawn lation and notes of his own. up in direct contradiction to the Interpretation of the Poems Mons. Nicolas, whose Edition has reminded me of several things, given in his Notes. (See pp. 13-14 of his Preface.) Indeed I and instructed me in others, does not consider Omar to be the ma- hardly knew poor Omar was so far gone till his Apologist terial Epicurean that I have literally taken him for, but a Mystic, informed me. For here we see that, whatever were the Wine shadowing the Deity under the figure of Wine, Wine-bearer, &c., as that Hafiz drank and sang, the veritable Juice of the Grape it Hafiz is supposed to do; in short, a Sufi Poet like Hafiz and the rest. was which Omar used, not only when carousing with his I cannot see reason to alter my opinion, formed as it was friends, but (says Mons. Nicolas) in order to excite himself to more than a dozen years ago when Omar was first shown me that pitch of Devotion which others reached by cries and by one to whom I am indebted for all I know of Oriental, “hurlemens.” And yet, whenever Wine, Wine-bearer, &c., and very much of other, literature. He admired Omar’s Ge- occur in the Text—which is often enough—Mons. Nicolas nius so much, that he would gladly have adopted any such carefully annotates “Dieu,” “La Divinite,” &c.: so carefully Interpretation of his meaning as Mons. Nicolas’ if he could.* indeed that one is tempted to think that he was indoctrinated by the Sufi with whom he read the Poems. (Note to Rub. ii. * Perhaps would have edited the Poems himself some years p. 8.) A Persian would naturally wish to vindicate a distin- ago. He may now as little approve of my Version on one side, guished Countryman; and a Sufi to enroll him in his own as of Mons. Nicolas’ Theory on the other. 11 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam sect, which already comprises all the chief Poets of Persia. how wash the Body with it when dead? Why make cups of What historical Authority has Mons. Nicolas to show that the dead clay to be filled with— “La Divinite,” by some suc- Omar gave himself up “avec passion a l’etude de la philosophie ceeding Mystic? Mons. Nicolas himself is puzzled by some des Soufis”? (Preface, p. xiii.) The Doctrines of Pantheism, “bizarres” and “trop Orientales” allusions and images— “d’une Materialism, Necessity, &c., were not peculiar to the Sufi; sensualite quelquefois revoltante” indeed—which “les nor to Lucretius before them; nor to Epicurus before him; convenances” do not permit him to translate; but still which probably the very original Irreligion of Thinking men from the reader cannot but refer to “La Divinite.”* No doubt also the first; and very likely to be the spontaneous growth of a Philosopher living in an Age of social and political barbarism, * A note to Quatrain 234 admits that, however clear the under shadow of one of the Two and Seventy Religions sup- mystical meaning of such Images must be to Europeans, they posed to divide the world. Von Hammer (according to are not quoted without “rougissant” even by laymen in Per- Sprenger’s Oriental Catalogue) speaks of Omar as “a Free- sia— “Quant aux termes de tendresse qui commencent ce qua- thinker, and a great opponent of ;” perhaps because, train, comme tant d’autres dans ce recueil, nos lecteurs, habi- while holding much of their Doctrine, he would not pretend tues maintenant a 1’etrangete des expressions si souvent em- to any inconsistent severity of morals. Sir W. Ouseley has ployees par Kheyam pour rendre ses pensees sur l’amour divin, written a note to something of the same effect on the fly-leaf et a la singularite des images trop orientales, d’une sensualite of the Bodleian MS. And in two Rubaiyat of Mons. Nicolas’ quelquefois revoltante, n’auront pas de peine a se persuader own Edition Suf and Sufi are both disparagingly named. qu’il s’agit de la Divinite, bien que cette conviction soit vivement No doubt many of these seem unaccountable discutee par les moullahs musulmans, et meme par beaucoup de unless mystically interpreted; but many more as unaccount- laiques, qui rougissent veritablement d’une pareille licence de able unless literally. Were the Wine spiritual, for instance, leur compatriote a 1’egard des choses spirituelles.”

12 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam many of the Quatrains in the Teheran, as in the Calcutta, others sang; using Wine and Beauty indeed as Images to illus- Copies, are spurious; such Rubaiyat being the common form trate, not as a Mask to hide, the Divinity they were celebrat- of Epigram in Persia. But this, at best, tells as much one way ing. Perhaps some Allegory less liable to mistake or abuse as another; nay, the Sufi, who may be considered the Scholar had been better among so inflammable a People: much more and Man of Letters in Persia, would be far more likely than so when, as some think with Hafiz and Omar, the abstract is the careless Epicure to interpolate what favours his own view not only likened to, but identified with, the sensual Image; of the Poet. I observed that very few of the more mystical hazardous, if not to the Devotee himself, yet to his weaker Quatrains are in the Bodleian MS., which must be one of the Brethren; and worse for the Profane in proportion as the De- oldest, as dated at Shiraz, A.H. 865, A.D. 1460. And this, I votion of the Initiated grew warmer. And all for what? To be think, especially distinguishes Omar (I cannot help calling tantalized with Images of sensual enjoyment which must be him by his—no, not Christian—familiar name) from all other renounced if one would approximate a God, who according Persian Poets: That, whereas with them the Poet is lost in his to the Doctrine, is Sensual Matter as well as Spirit, and into Song, the Man in Allegory and Abstraction; we seem to have whose Universe one expects unconsciously to merge after the Man—the Bon-homme—Omar himself, with all his Death, without hope of any posthumous Beatitude in an- Humours and Passions, as frankly before us as if we were other world to compensate for all one’s self- denial in this. really at Table with him, after the Wine had gone round. Lucretius’ blind Divinity certainly merited, and probably got, I must say that I, for one, never wholly believed in the Mys- as much self-sacrifice as this of the Sufi; and the burden of ticism of Hafiz. It does not appear there was any danger in Omar’s Song—if not “Let us eat”—is assuredly—”Let us holding and singing Sufi Pantheism, so long as the Poet made drink, for To-morrow we die!” And if Hafiz meant quite his Salaam to Mohammed at the beginning and end of his otherwise by a similar language, he surely miscalculated when Song. Under such conditions Jelaluddin, , Attar, and he devoted his Life and Genius to so equivocal a Psalmody

13 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as, from his Day to this, has been said and sung by any rather First Edition than spiritual Worshippers. However, as there is some traditional presumption, and cer- I. tainly the opinion of some learned men, in favour of Omar’s being a Sufi—and even something of a Saint—those who Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night please may so interpret his Wine and Cup-bearer. On the Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: other hand, as there is far more historical certainty of his be- And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught ing a Philosopher, of scientific Insight and Ability far beyond The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light. that of the Age and Country he lived in; of such moderate worldly Ambition as becomes a Philosopher, and such mod- II. erate wants as rarely satisfy a Debauchee; other readers may be content to believe with me that, while the Wine Omar cel- Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky ebrates is simply the Juice of the Grape, he bragg’d more than I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry, he drank of it, in very defiance perhaps of that Spiritual Wine “Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup which left its Votaries sunk in Hypocrisy or Disgust. Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.”

Edward J. Fitzgerald III.

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted—”Open then the Door. You know how little while we have to stay, And, once departed, may return no more.” 14 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam IV. VII.

Now the New Year reviving old Desires, Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, The Winter Garment of Repentance fling: Where the white hand of Moses on the Bough The Bird of Time has but a little way Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

V. VIII.

Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose, And look—a thousand Blossoms with the Day And Jamshyd’s Sev’n-ring’d Cup where no one knows; Woke—and a thousand scatter’d into Clay: But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields, And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose And still a Garden by the Water blows. Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

VI. IX.

And David’s Lips are lock’t; but in divine But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot High piping Pelevi, with “Wine! Wine! Wine! Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot: Red Wine!”—the Nightingale cries to the Rose Let Rustum lay about him as he will, That yellow Cheek of hers to’incarnadine. Or Hatim Tai cry Supper—heed them not.

15 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam X. XIII.

With me along some Strip of Herbage strown Look to the Rose that blows about us—”Lo, That just divides the desert from the sown, Laughing,” she says, “into the World I blow: Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known, At once the silken Tassel of my Purse And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne. Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.”

XI. XIV.

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon, Beside me singing in the Wilderness— Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face And Wilderness is Paradise enow. Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone.

XII. XV.

“How sweet is mortal Sovranty!”—think some: And those who husbanded the Golden Grain, Others—”How blest the Paradise to come!” And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain, Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest; Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum! As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

16 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XVI. XIX.

Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai And this delightful Herb whose tender Green Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day, Fledges the River’s Lip on which we lean— How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows Abode his Hour or two, and went his way. From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XVII. XX.

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep Ah! my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears- And Bahram, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass To-morrow?—Why, To-morrow I may be Stamps o’er his Head, and he lies fast asleep. Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.

XVIII. XXI.

I sometimes think that never blows so red Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and the best The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled; That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest, That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head. And one by one crept silently to Rest.

17 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XXII. XXV.

And we, that now make merry in the Room Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom, Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn Descend, ourselves to make a Couch—for whom? Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

XXIII. XXVI.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise Before we too into the Dust Descend; To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies; Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie, One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies; Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and—sans End! The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

XXIV. XXVII.

Alike for those who for to-day prepare, Myself when young did eagerly frequent And those that after a to-morrow stare, Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries About it and about: but evermore “Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There.” Came out by the same Door as in I went.

18 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XXVIII. XXXI.

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow, Up from Earth’s Centre through the seventh Gate And with my own hand labour’d it to grow: I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d— And many Knots unravel’d by the Road; “I came like Water, and like Wind I go.” But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.

XXIX. XXXII.

Into this Universe, and why not knowing, There was a Door to which I found no Key: Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing: There was a Veil past which I could not see: And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, Some little Talk awhile of me and thee I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing. There seemed—and then no more of thee and me.

XXX. XXXIII.

What, without asking, hither hurried whence? Then to the rolling Heav’n itself I cried, And, without asking, whither hurried hence! Asking, “What Lamp had Destiny to guide Another and another Cup to drown Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?” The Memory of this Impertinence! And—”A blind understanding!” Heav’n replied.

19 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XXXIV. XXXVII.

Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn: How Time is slipping underneath our Feet: And Lip to Lip it murmur’d—”While you live, Unborn to-morrow and dead yesterday, Drink!—for once dead you never shall return.” Why fret about them if to-day be sweet!

XXXV. XXXVIII.

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste, Articulation answer’d, once did live, One moment, of the Well of Life to taste— And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss’d The Stars are setting, and the Caravan How many Kisses might it take—and give. Starts for the dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!

XXXVI. XXXIX.

For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day, How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit I watch’d the Potter thumping his wet Clay: Of This and That endeavour and dispute? And with its all obliterated Tongue Better be merry with the fruitful Grape It murmur’d—”Gently, Brother, gently, pray!” Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

20 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XL. XLIII.

You know, my Friends, how long since in my House The Grape that can with Logic absolute For a new Marriage I did make Carouse: The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute: Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. Life’s leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

XLI. XLIV.

For “is” and “is-not” though with Rule and Line, The mighty Mahmud, the victorious Lord, And, “up-and-down” without, I could define, That all the misbelieving and black Horde I yet in all I only cared to know, Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul Was never deep in anything but—Wine. Scatters and slays with his enchanted Sword.

XLII. XLV.

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape, The Quarrel of the Universe let be: Bearing a vessel on his Shoulder; and And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht, He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape! Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

21 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XLVI. XLVIX.

For in and out, above, about, below, ’Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days ’Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show, Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Play’d in a Box whose Candle is the Sun, Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, Round which we Phantom Figures come and go. And one by one back in the Closet lays.

XLVII. L.

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes, End in the Nothing all Things end in—Yes- But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes; Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what And He that toss’d Thee down into the Field, Thou shalt be—Nothing—Thou shalt not be less. He knows about it all—HE knows—HE knows!

XLVIII. LI.

While the Rose blows along the River Brink, The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink: Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit And when the Angel with his darker Draught Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Draws up to thee—take that, and do not shrink. Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

22 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LII. LV.

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky, The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die, It clings my Being—let the Sufi flout; Lift not thy hands to IT for help—for It Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key, Rolls impotently on as Thou or I. That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

LIII. LVI.

With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man’s knead, And this I know: whether the one True Light, And then of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed: Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite, Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read. Better than in the Temple lost outright.

LIV. LVII.

I tell Thee this—When, starting from the Goal, Oh Thou who didst with Pitfall and with Gin Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal Beset the Road I was to wander in, Of Heav’n Parwin and Mushtari they flung, Thou wilt not with Predestination round In my predestin’d Plot of Dust and Soul Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?

23 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LVIII. LX.

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot And who with Eden didst devise the Snake; Some could articulate, while others not: For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man And suddenly one more impatient cried— Is blacken’d, Man’s Forgiveness give—and take! “Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * LXI.

KUZA—NAMA. (“Book of Pots”) Then said another—”Surely not in vain My substance from the common Earth was ta’en, LIX. That He who subtly wrought me into Shape Should stamp me back to common Earth again.” Listen again. One Evening at the Close Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose, LXII. In that old Potter’s Shop I stood alone With the clay Population round in Rows. Another said—”Why, ne’er a peevish Boy Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy; Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love And Fansy, in an after Rage destroy!”

24 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LXIII. LXVI.

None answer’d this; but after Silence spake So, while the Vessels one by one were speaking, A Vessel of a more ungainly Make: One spied the little Crescent all were seeking: “They sneer at me for leaning all awry; And then they jogg’d each other, “Brother! Brother! What? did the Hand then of the Potter shake?” Hark to the Porter’s Shoulder-knot a-creaking!”

LXIV. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Said one—”Folks of a surly Tapster tell, LXVII. And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell; They talk of some strict Testing of us—Pish! Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide, He’s a Good Fellow, and ‘twill all be well.” And wash my Body whence the life has died, And in a Windingsheet of Vineleaf wrapt, LXV. So bury me by some sweet Gardenside.

Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh, LXVIII. “My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry: But, fill me with the old familiar Juice, That ev’n my buried Ashes such a Snare Methinks I might recover by-and-bye!” Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air, As not a True Believer passing by But shall be overtaken unaware. 25 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LXIX. LXXII.

Indeed, the Idols I have loved so long Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! Have done my Credit in Men’s Eye much wrong: That Youth’s sweet-scented Manuscript should close! Have drown’d my Honour in a shallow Cup, The Nightingale that in the Branches sang, And sold my Reputation for a Song. Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

LXX. LXXIII.

Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire I swore—but was I sober when I swore? To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand Would not we shatter it to bits—and then My thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore. Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!

LXXI. LXXIV.

And much as Wine has play’d the Infidel, Ah, Moon of my Delight who know’st no wane, And robb’d me of my Robe of Honour—well, The Moon of Heav’n is rising once again: I often wonder what the Vintners buy How oft hereafter rising shall she look One half so precious as the Goods they sell. Through this same Garden after me—in vain!

26 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LXXV. Fifth Edition

And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass I. Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on The Grass, And in Thy joyous Errand reach the Spot Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight Where I made one—turn down an empty Glass! The Stars before him from the Field of Night, Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, and strikes The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light. TAMAM SHUD. II.

Before the phantom of False morning died, Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried, “When all the Temple is prepared within, “Why nods the drowsy Worshiper outside?”

III.

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted—”Open then the Door! “You know how little while we have to stay, And, once departed, may return no more.” 27 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam IV. VII.

Now the New Year reviving old Desires, Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: Where the white hand of Moses on the Bough The Bird of Time has but a little way Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.

V. VIII.

Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose, Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, And Jamshyd’s Sev’n-ring’d Cup where no one knows; Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, And many a Garden by the Water blows. The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

VI. IX.

And David’s lips are lockt; but in divine Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: High-piping Pehlevi, with “Wine! Wine! Wine! Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? “Red Wine!”—the Nightingale cries to the Rose And this first Summer month that brings the Rose That sallow cheek of hers to’ incarnadine. Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

28 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam X. XIII.

Well, let it take them! What have we to do Some for the Glories of This World; and some With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru? Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come; Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will, Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Or Hatim call to Supper—heed not you. Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

XI. XIV.

With me along the strip of Herbage strown Look to the blowing Rose about us—”Lo, That just divides the desert from the sown, Laughing,” she says, “into the world I blow, Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot— At once the silken tassel of my Purse And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne! Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.”

XII. XV.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, And those who husbanded the Golden grain, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou And those who flung it to the winds like Rain, Beside me singing in the Wilderness— Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

29 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XVI. XIX.

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon I sometimes think that never blows so red Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon, The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled; Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face, That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Lighting a little hour or two—is gone. Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

XVII. XX.

Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai And this reviving Herb whose tender Green Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean— How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows Abode his destined Hour, and went his way. From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XVIII. XXI.

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: To-day of past Regrets and future Fears: And Bahram, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass To-morrow—Why, To-morrow I may be Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep. Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n thousand Years.

30 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XXII. XXV.

For some we loved, the loveliest and the best Alike for those who for to-day prepare, That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest, And those that after some to-morrow stare, Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries, And one by one crept silently to rest. “Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There.”

XXIII. XXVI.

And we, that now make merry in the Room Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom, Of the Two Worlds so wisely—they are thrust Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn Descend—ourselves to make a Couch—for whom? Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

XXIV. XXVII.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, Myself when young did eagerly frequent Before we too into the Dust descend; Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie, About it and about: but evermore Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End! Came out by the same door where in I went.

31 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XXVIII. XXXI.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, Up from Earth’s Center through the Seventh Gate And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d— And many a Knot unravel’d by the Road; “I came like Water, and like Wind I go.” But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.

XXIX. XXXII.

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing There was the Door to which I found no Key; Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing; There was the Veil through which I might not see: And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, Some little talk awhile of me and thee I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing. There was—and then no more of thee and me.

XXX. XXXIII.

What, without asking, hither hurried Whence? Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn And, without asking, Whither hurried hence! In flowing Purple, of their Lord Forlorn; Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal’d Must drown the memory of that insolence! And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.

32 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XXXIV. XXXVII.

Then of the thee in me who works behind For I remember stopping by the way The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay: A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard, And with its all-obliterated Tongue As from Without—”The me within thee blind!” It murmur’d—”Gently, Brother, gently, pray!”

XXXV. XXXVIII.

Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn And has not such a Story from of Old I lean’d, the Secret of my Life to learn: Down Man’s successive generations roll’d And Lip to Lip it murmur’d—”While you live, Of such a clod of saturated Earth “Drink!—for, once dead, you never shall return.” Cast by the Maker into Human mold?

XXXVI. XXXIX.

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive And not a drop that from our Cups we throw Articulation answer’d, once did live, For Earth to drink of, but may steal below And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kiss’d, To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye How many Kisses might it take—and give! There hidden—far beneath, and long ago.

33 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XL. XLIII.

As then the Tulip for her morning sup So when that Angel of the darker Drink Of Heav’nly Vintage from the soil looks up, At last shall find you by the river-brink, Do you devoutly do the like, till Heav’n And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul To Earth invert you—like an empty Cup. Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink.

XLI. XLIV.

Perplext no more with Human or Divine, Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside, To-morrow’s tangle to the winds resign, And naked on the Air of Heaven ride, And lose your fingers in the tresses of Were’t not a Shame—were’t not a Shame for him The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine. In this clay carcass crippled to abide?

XLII. XLV.

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, ’Tis but a Tent where takes his one day’s rest End in what All begins and ends in—Yes; A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; Think then you are to-day what yesterday The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash You were—to-morrow you shall not be less. Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.

34 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XLVI. XLIX.

And fear not lest Existence closing your Would you that spangle of Existence spend Account, and mine, should know the like no more; About the secret—quick about it, Friend! The Eternal from that Bowl has pour’d A Hair perhaps divides the False from True— Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour. And upon what, prithee, may life depend?

XLVII. L.

When You and I behind the Veil are past, A Hair perhaps divides the False and True; Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last, Yes; and a single Alif were the clue— Which of our Coming and Departure heeds Could you but find it—to the Treasure-house, As the Sea’s self should heed a pebble-cast. And peradventure to the master too;

XLVIII. LI.

A Moment’s Halt—a momentary taste Whose secret Presence through Creation’s veins Of being from the Well amid the Waste— Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains; And Lo!—the phantom Caravan has reach’d Taking all shapes from Mah to Mahi and The nothing it set out from—Oh, make haste! They change and perish all—but He remains;

35 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LII. LV.

A moment guessed—then back behind the Fold You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll’d I made a Second Marriage in my house; Which, for the Pastime of Eternity, Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold. And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

LIII. LVI.

But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor For “Is” and “Is-not” though with Rule and Line Of Earth, and up to Heav’n’s unopening Door, And “Up-and-down” by Logic I define, You gaze to-day, while You are You—how then Of all that one should care to fathom, I To-morrow, when You shall be You no more? was never deep in anything but—Wine.

LIV. LVII.

Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit Ah, by my Computations, People say, Of This and That endeavor and dispute; Reduce the Year to better reckoning?—Nay, Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape ’Twas only striking from the Calendar Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit. Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday.

36 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LVIII. LXI.

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare? Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and A Blessing, we should use it, should we not? He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape! And if a Curse—why, then, Who set it there?

LIX. LXII.

The Grape that can with Logic absolute I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must, The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute: Scared by some After-reckoning ta’en on trust, The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink, Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute; To fill the Cup—when crumbled into Dust!

LX. LXIII.

The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord, Of threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! That all the misbelieving and black Horde One thing at least is certain—This Life flies; Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword. The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

37 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LXIV. LXVII.

Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire, Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through, And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire, Not one returns to tell us of the Road, Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, Which to discover we must travel too. So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.

LXV. LXVIII.

The Revelations of Devout and Learn’d We are no other than a moving row Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn’d, Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held They told their comrades, and to Sleep return’d. In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

LXVI. LXIX.

I sent my Soul through the Invisible, But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays Some letter of that After-life to spell: Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days; And by and by my Soul return’d to me, Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And answer’d “I Myself am Heav’n and Hell:” And one by one back in the Closet lays.

38 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LXX. LXXIII.

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man knead, But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; And there of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed: And He that toss’d you down into the Field, And the first Morning of Creation wrote He knows about it all—he knows—he knows! What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

LXXI. LXXIV.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Yesterday This Day’s Madness did prepare; Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit To-morrow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair: Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Drink! for you not know whence you came, nor why: Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

LXXII. LXXV.

And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, I tell you this—When, started from the Goal, Whereunder crawling coop’d we live and die, Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal Lift not your hands to It for help—for It Of Heav’n Parwin and Mushtari they flung, As impotently moves as you or I. In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul.

39 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LXXVI. LXXIX.

The Vine had struck a fiber: which about What! from his helpless Creature be repaid It clings my Being—let the Dervish flout; Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay’d— Of my Base metal may be filed a Key Sue for a Debt he never did contract, That shall unlock the Door he howls without. And cannot answer—Oh the sorry trade!

LXXVII. LXXX.

And this I know: whether the one True Light Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite, Beset the Road I was to wander in, One Flash of It within the Tavern caught Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round Better than in the Temple lost outright. Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!

LXXVIII. LXXXI.

What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, A conscious Something to resent the yoke And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake: Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke! Is blacken’d—Man’s forgiveness give—and take! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

40 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LXXXII. LXXXV.

As under cover of departing Day Then said a Second—”Ne’er a peevish Boy Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away, Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy; Once more within the Potter’s house alone And He that with his hand the Vessel made I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay. Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.”

LXXXIII. LXXXVI.

Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small, After a momentary silence spake That stood along the floor and by the wall; Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make; And some loquacious Vessels were; and some “They sneer at me for leaning all awry: Listen’d perhaps, but never talk’d at all. What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”

LXXXIV. LXXXVII.

Said one among them—”Surely not in vain Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot— My substance of the common Earth was ta’en I think a Sufi pipkin—waxing hot— And to this Figure molded, to be broke, “All this of Pot and Potter—Tell me then, Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again.” Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?”

41 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam LXXXVIII. XCI.

“Why,” said another, “Some there are who tell Ah, with the Grape my fading life provide, Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell And wash the Body whence the Life has died, The luckless Pots he marr’d in making—Pish! And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf, He’s a Good Fellow, and ‘twill all be well.” By some not unfrequented Garden-side.

LXXXIX. XCII.

“Well,” murmured one, “Let whoso make or buy, That ev’n buried Ashes such a snare My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry: Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air But fill me with the old familiar Juice, As not a True-believer passing by Methinks I might recover by and by.” But shall be overtaken unaware.

XC. XCIII.

So while the Vessels one by one were speaking, Indeed the Idols I have loved so long The little Moon look’d in that all were seeking: Have done my credit in this World much wrong: And then they jogg’d each other, “Brother! Brother! Have drown’d my Glory in a shallow Cup, Now for the Porter’s shoulders’ knot a-creaking!” And sold my reputation for a Song. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

42 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XCIV. XCVII.

Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield I swore—but was I sober when I swore? One glimpse—if dimly, yet indeed, reveal’d, And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand To which the fainting Traveler might spring, My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore. As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

XCV. XCVIII.

And much as Wine has play’d the Infidel, Would but some winged Angel ere too late And robb’d me of my Robe of Honor—Well, Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate, I wonder often what the Vintners buy And make the stern Recorder otherwise One half so precious as the stuff they sell. Enregister, or quite obliterate!

XCVI. XCIX.

Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire That Youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close! To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, The Nightingale that in the branches sang, Would not we shatter it to bits—and then Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows! Re-mold it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!

43 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam C. Notes

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again— The references are, except in the first note only, to the stanzas How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; of the Fifth edition. How oft hereafter rising look for us Through this same Garden—and for one in vain! (Stanza I.) Flinging a Stone into the Cup was the signal for “To Horse!” in the Desert. CI. (II.) The “False Dawn”; Subhi Kazib, a transient Light on the And when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass Horizon about an hour before the Subhi sadik or True Dawn; Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass, a well-known Phenomenon in the East. And in your joyous errand reach the spot Where I made One—turn down an empty Glass! (IV.) New Year. Beginning with the Vernal Equinox, it must be remembered; and (howsoever the old Solar Year is practically su- perseded by the clumsy Lunar Year that dates from the Moham- TAMAM. medan Hijra) still commemorated by a Festival that is said to have been appointed by the very Jamshyd whom Omar so often talks of, and whose yearly Calendar he helped to rectify.

“The sudden approach and rapid advance of the Spring,” says Mr. Binning, “are very striking. Before the Snow is well off

44 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam the Ground, the Trees burst into Blossom, and the Flowers rous as Snow,” but white, as our May-blossom in Spring per- start from the Soil. At Naw Rooz (their New Year’s Day) the haps. According to them also the Healing Power of Jesus Snow was lying in patches on the Hills and in the shaded resided in his Breath. Vallies, while the Fruit-trees in the Garden were budding beau- tifully, and green Plants and Flowers springing upon the Plains (V.) Iram, planted by King Shaddad, and now sunk some- on every side— where in the Sands of Arabia. Jamshyd’s Seven-ring’d Cup was typical of the 7 Heavens, 7 Planets, 7 Seas, &c., and was ‘And on old Hyems’ Chin and icy Crown a Divining Cup. An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer buds Is, as in mockery, set—’— (VI.) Pehlevi, the old Heroic of Persia. Hafiz also speaks of the Nightingale’s Pehlevi, which did not change with Among the Plants newly appear’d I recognized some Acquain- the People’s. tances I had not seen for many a Year: among these, two vari- I am not sure if the fourth line refers to the Red Rose look- eties of the Thistle; a coarse species of the Daisy, like the Horse- ing sickly, or to the Yellow Rose that ought to be Red; Red, gowan; red and white clover; the Dock; the blue Cornflower; White, and Yellow Roses all common in Persia. I think that and that vulgar Herb the Dandelion rearing its yellow crest Southey in his Common-Place Book, quotes from some on the Banks of the Water-courses.” The Nightingale was not Spanish author about the Rose being White till 10 o’clock; yet heard, for the Rose was not yet blown: but an almost “Rosa Perfecta” at 2; and “perfecta incarnada” at 5. identical Blackbird and Woodpecker helped to make up some- thing of a North-country Spring. (X.) Rustum, the “Hercules” of Persia, and Zal his Father, whose “The White Hand of Moses.” Exodus iv. 6; where Moses exploits are among the most celebrated in the Shahnama. Hatim draws forth his Hand—not, according to the , “lep- Tai, a well-known type of Oriental Generosity. 45 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (XIII.) A Drum—beaten outside a Palace. like the Master of Ravenswood, while pursuing his Gur.

(XIV.) That is, the Rose’s Golden Centre. The Palace that to Heav’n his pillars threw, And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew— (XVIII.) Persepolis: call’d also Takht-i-Jam-shyd—The Throne I saw the solitary Ringdove there, of Jamshyd, “King Splendid,” of the mythical Peshdadian And “Coo, coo, coo,” she cried; and “Coo, coo, coo.” Dynasty, and supposed (according to the Shah-nama) to have been founded and built by him. Others refer it to the Work [Included in Nicolas’s edition as No. 350 of the Rubaiyat, and of the Genie King, Jan Ibn Jan—who also built the Pyra- also in Mr. Whinfield’s translation.] mids—before the time of Adam. This Quatrain Mr. Binning found, among several of Hafiz Bahram Gur.—Bahram of the Wild Ass—a Sassanian Sover- and others, inscribed by some stray hand among the ruins of eign—had also his Seven Castles (like the King of Bohemia!) Persepolis. The Ringdove’s ancient Pehlevi Coo, Coo, Coo, each of a different Colour: each with a Royal Mistress within; signifies also in Persian “Where? Where? Where?” In Attar’s each of whom tells him a Story, as told in one of the most “Bird-parliament” she is reproved by the Leader of the Birds famous Poems of Persia, written by Amir Khusraw: all these for sitting still, and for ever harping on that one note of lam- Sevens also figuring (according to Eastern Mysticism) the entation for her lost Yusuf. Seven Heavens; and perhaps the Book itself that Eighth, into Apropos of Omar’s Red Roses in Stanza xix, I am reminded of which the mystical Seven transcend, and within which they an old English Superstition, that our Anemone Pulsatilla, or purple revolve. The Ruins of Three of those Towers are yet shown “Pasque Flower,” (which grows plentifully about the Fleam Dyke, by the Peasantry; as also the Swamp in which Bahram sunk, near Cambridge,) grows only where Danish Blood has been spilt.

46 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (XXI.) A thousand years to each Planet. ally in the East. Mons. Nicolas considers it “un signe de liberalite, et en meme temps un avertissement que le buveur (XXXI.) Saturn, Lord of the Seventh Heaven. doit vider sa coupe jusqu’a la derniere goutte.” Is it not more likely an ancient Superstition; a Libation to propitiate Earth, (XXXII.) Me-and-thee: some dividual Existence or Personal- or make her an Accomplice in the illicit Revel? Or, perhaps, ity distinct from the Whole. to divert the Jealous Eye by some sacrifice of superfluity, as with the Ancients of the West? With Omar we see some- (XXXVII.) One of the Persian Poets—Attar, I think—has a thing more is signified; the precious Liquor is not lost, but pretty story about this. A thirsty Traveller dips his hand into sinks into the ground to refresh the dust of some poor Wine- a Spring of Water to drink from. By-and-by comes another worshipper foregone. who draws up and drinks from an earthen bowl, and then Thus Hafiz, copying Omar in so many ways: “When thou departs, leaving his Bowl behind him. The first Traveller takes drinkest Wine pour a draught on the ground. Wherefore fear it up for another draught; but is surprised to find that the the Sin which brings to another Gain?” same Water which had tasted sweet from his own hand tastes bitter from the earthen Bowl. But a Voice—from Heaven, I (XLIII.) According to one beautiful Oriental Legend, Azrael think—tells him the clay from which the Bowl is made was accomplishes his mission by holding to the nostril an Apple once Man; and, into whatever shape renew’d, can never lose from the Tree of Life. the bitter flavour of Mortality. This, and the two following Stanzas would have been with- drawn, as somewhat de trop, from the Text, but for advice (XXXIX.) The custom of throwing a little Wine on the ground which I least like to disregard. before drinking still continues in Persia, and perhaps gener-

47 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (LI.) From Mah to Mahi; from Fish to Moon. Like the other foot obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, (LVI.) A Jest, of course, at his Studies. A curious mathemati- And me to end where I begun. cal Quatrain of Omar’s has been pointed out to me; the more curious because almost exactly parallel’d by some Verses of (LIX.) The Seventy-two Religions supposed to divide the Doctor Donne’s, that are quoted in Izaak Walton’s Lives! Here World, including Islamism, as some think: but others not. is Omar: “You and I are the image of a pair of compasses; though we have two heads (sc. our feet) we have one body; (LX.) Alluding to Sultan Mahmud’s Conquest of India and when we have fixed the centre for our circle, we bring our its dark people. heads (sc. feet) together at the end.” Dr. Donne: (LXVIII.) Fanusi khiyal, a Magic-lanthorn still used in India; If we be two, we two are so the cylindrical Interior being painted with various Figures, As stiff twin-compasses are two; and so lightly poised and ventilated as to revolve round the Thy Soul, the fixt foot, makes no show lighted Candle within. To move, but does if the other do. (LXX.) A very mysterious Line in the Original: And though thine in the centre sit, Yet when my other far does roam, O danad O danad O danad O— Thine leans and hearkens after it, And rows erect as mine comes home. breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon’s Note, which she is said to take up just where she left off. Such thou must be to me, who must 48 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (LXXV.) Parwin and Mushtari—The Pleiads and Jupiter. ous Speaking-pot story in the Vespae, which I had quite for- gotten. (LXXXVII.) This Relation of Pot and Potter to Man and his Maker figures far and wide in the Literature of the World, [Greek text deleted from etext.] from the time of the Hebrew Prophets to the present; when it may finally tak e the name of “Pot theism,” by which Mr. “The Pot calls a bystander to be a witness to his bad treat- Carlyle ridiculed Sterling’s “Pantheism.” My Sheikh, whose ment. The woman says, ‘If, by Proserpine, instead of all this knowledge flows in from all quarters, writes to me— ‘testifying’ (comp. Cuddie and his mother in ‘Old Mortal- “Apropos of old Omar’s Pots, did I ever tell you the sen- ity!’) you would buy yourself a rivet, it would show more tence I found in ‘Bishop Pearson on the Creed’? ‘Thus are we sense in you!’ The Scholiast explains echinus as [Greek phrase wholly at the disposal of His will, and our present and future deleted from etext].” condition framed and ordered by His free, but wise and just, One more illustration for the oddity’s sake from the “Auto- decrees. Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same biography of a Cornish Rector,” by the late James Hamley lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto Tregenna. 1871. dishonour? (Rom. ix. 21.) And can that earth-artificer have “There was one odd Fellow in our Company—he was so a freer power over his brother potsherd (both being made of like a Figure in the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ that Richard always the same metal), than God hath over him, who, by the strange called him the ‘allegory,’ with a long white beard—a rare Ap- fecundity of His omnipotent power, first made the clay out pendage in those days—and a Face the colour of which seemed of nothing, and then him out of that?’” to have been baked in, like the Faces one used to see on Earth- And again—from a very different quarter—”I had to refer enware Jugs. In our Country-dialect Earthenware is called the other day to Aristophanes, and came by chance on a curi- ‘Clome’; so the Boys of the Village used to shout out after

49 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam him—’Go back to the Potter, Old Clomeface, and get baked over again.’ For the ‘Allegory,’ though shrewd enough in most things, had the reputation of being ‘saift-baked,’ i.e., of weak intellect.”

(XC.) At the Close of the Fasting Month, Ramazan (which makes the Mussulman unhealthy and unamiable), the first Glimpse of the New Moon (who rules their division of the Year) is looked for with the utmost Anxiety, and hailed with Acclamation. Then it is that the Porter’s Knot maybe heard— toward the Cellar. Omar has elsewhere a pretty Quatrain about the same Moon—

“Be of Good Cheer—the sullen Month will die, And a young Moon requite us by and by: Look how the Old one meagre, bent, and wan With Age and Fast, is fainting from the Sky!”

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